Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation Model

The Vulnerability Stress Adaptation (VSA) Model[1] is a framework for conceptualizing the dynamic processes of marriage, created by Benjamin Karney and Thomas Bradbury. The VSA Model emphasizes the consideration of multiple dimensions of functioning, including couple members’ enduring vulnerabilities, experiences of stressful events, and adaptive processes, to account for variations in marital quality and stability over time. The VSA model was a departure from past research considering any one of these themes separately as a contributor to marital outcomes, and integrated these separate factors into a single, cohesive framework in order to best explain how and why marriages change over time. In adherence with the VSA model, in order to achieve a complete understanding of marital phenomenon, research must consider all dimensions of marital functioning, including enduring vulnerabilities, stress, and adaptive processes simultaneously.

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The VSA Model posits that couples who have few enduring vulnerabilities, encounter few stressors, and employ effective adaptive processes are likely to experience high marital quality and stability, while couples who have many enduring vulnerabilities, encounter many stressors, and employ ineffective adaptive processes will experience declining marital quality and/or divorce.

The VSA Model is an integration of the foundational perspectives of social exchange theory of behavior,[2] attachment theory,[3] crisis theory,[4] and the diathesis stress model.[5]Consideration of Social exchange theory of behavior: The VSA model states that behavioral exchanges and relationship quality reciprocally influence one another, such that spouses’ (1) behavioral exchanges in the marriage lead to changes in marital satisfaction, and that (2) relationship satisfaction influences couple members’ behavioral exchanges.

Consideration of Attachment theory:The VSA model considers how stable personal characteristics can elicit the experience of stressful life events and can affect couples’ ability to adapt to the marital difficulties these stressors breed.

Consideration of Crisis theory: The VSA model accounts for the different kinds of life events and circumstances couples can face, and considers both how these stressors influence spouses’ behavioral exchanges, and how these behavioral exchanges used to manage encountered stressors can serve to heighten or mitigate their effects.

Considerations of Diathesis–stress model: The VSA model accounts for the association between individual/couple vulnerability and capacity to manage stress as it emerges.

1) Research has shown that unemployment in a blue-collar worker population [6] and increases in the daily workload of air traffic controllers [7] covary with more negative behavioral exchanges between spouses.

2) A daily diary study revealed that when individual experience more stress on a given day, they are more likely to describe their interactions with their partners as negative.[8]

1) Research has shown that couple members' experiences in childhood are linked with the quantity of complaints about their own marital relationships [9] and with attitudes towards marriage in general.[10]

2) Studies have shown that children whose parents divorced exhibited weaker social skills as adults. [11]

3) Research has shown that spouses' education [12] and personality traits[13] are associated with the quality of their behavioral exchanges with one another.

1) Personality traits are concurrently associated with frequency of negative life events.[14]

2) Negative affectivity is cross-sectionally associated with experiencing life events as more stressful.[15]

3) The stress-generation model of depression states that chronically depressed individuals can generate stressors in their lives that then exacerbate their depressive symptoms, perpetuating the cycle of depression.[16]

1) Research has shown that lower marital quality predicts longer periods of recovery from heart attacks, and it is likely that the behaviors exchanged between patients and their spouses mediate this effect.[17]

2) Longitudinal research on individuals with Major depressive disorder has shown that participants with critical spouses are more likely experience relapses in depressive symptomatology than were participants with less critical spouses.[18]

Behavioral exchanges when couple members are problem-solving or supporting one another is associated with changes in marital quality, and more research is shifting its focus to understanding the mechanisms by which behavior impacts marital quality.

1) Research has revealed that that wives of more satisfied husbands became more affectionate over time, and husbands of more satisfied wives became less negative over time. This demonstrates spouses’ behavior changing as a result of their partners’ level of satisfaction.

Researchers used the VSA framework to explore associations between individual/couple vulnerabilities, stress associated with deployment, adaptive processes, including communication and management of change, and emotional intimacy. [24]

^Repetti, R. L. (1989). Effects of daily workload on subsequent behavior during marital interaction: The roles of social withdrawal and spouse support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57,651-659.